Page 24 - ARUBA TODAY

A24 TECHNOLOGY
Thursday 28 February 2019
Teen video app Musical.ly agrees to FTC fine

In this Feb. 28, 2018 photo, Matty Nev Luby holds her phone and logs into the lip-sync smartphone app Musical.ly, in Wethersfield, Conn.
Associated Press
By MATT O'BRIEN 8 or 9 sharing short videos ators using the app to con- Angeles. companies like ByteDance
AP Technology Writer of themselves on the plat- tact children. TikTok said in a blog post will see it as merely the cost
The operator of a video- form. Smith said that along with Wednesday that in con- of doing business.
sharing app popular with "Just because you say it's in- failing to adequately seek junction with the FTC Massachusetts Democrat-
teenagers agreed to pay tended for over-13 doesn't parent's permission, the op- agreement, it's starting a ic U.S. Sen. Edward Mar-
$5.7 million to settle federal mean that it is," said An- erators of Musical.ly didn't separate app for younger key, who authored the
allegations it illegally col- drew Smith, director of the honor parents' requests U.S. users with stronger safe- decades-old privacy law
lected personal informa- FTC's Bureau of Consumer for personal information to ty and privacy protections. the FTC's complaint was
tion from children . Protection, in a conference be deleted. Smith said the Children using the new based on, said in a state-
The Federal Trade Commis- call Wednesday. company deleted some app will be able to watch ment Wednesday that the
sion said the Wednesday Musical.ly, founded in 2014 under-age accounts but videos but won't be able fine "is not high enough for
penalty against lip-syncing and registered in the Cay- didn't delete their videos to share their own videos, the harm that is done to
app Musical.ly, now known man Islands, grew rapidly and profile information make comments, maintain children and to deter viola-
as TikTok, is the largest ever and operated out of of- from its own servers. a profile or message other tions of the law in the future
obtained in a children's pri- fices in Shanghai and Cali- Profile information often users. by other companies."
vacy case. fornia. The FTC said the app included email addresses TikTok's intention to start a Children's advocates have
The FTC said the app vio- has been downloaded by as well as a child's name, new app for children was pushed the FTC to investi-
lated the federal Children's more than 200 million peo- age, school and picture. troubling to Josh Golin, who gate whether other com-
Online Privacy Protection ple worldwide, and 65 mil- Until October 2016, one of directs the Boston-based panies, including Google's
Act, which requires kid-ori- lion in the U.S. the app's features allowed Campaign for a Commer- YouTube, are similarly vio-
ented websites to get par- It built a devoted commu- users to find nearby users cial Free Childhood. lating children's online pri-
ents' consent before col- nity of self-described "mus- within a 50-mile radius. "TikTok should be nowhere vacy.
lecting personal informa- ers" who regularly shared Beijing-based ByteDance near children and children The FTC said its Musical.ly
tion from children under 13. lip-syncing, dancing, gym- Technology announced it should be nowhere near investigation was sparked
The app changed its prac- nastics or comedy videos. was acquiring the platform TikTok," Golin said. in part by a referral from
tices in 2017 to officially But the app also raised in late 2017, and last sum- Golin and other privacy the Better Business Bureau's
ban kids under 13 from join- concerns among many mer folded Musical.ly into advocates were also un- Children's Advertising Re-
ing, but it wasn't hard to parents, especially after its own popular video app, derwhelmed by FTC's re- view Unit, a group set up by
find children as young as news reports of adult pred- TikTok, which is based in Los cord fine, arguing that big industry to regulate itself.q